Title: Burning Moon

Author: Jo Watson

Series: Destination Love, #1

On Sale: November 1, 2016

Publisher: Forever

Trade Paperback: $14.99 USD

eBook: $4.99 USD

Add to Goodreads

**NOW AVAILABLE IN PRINT FOR THE FIRST TIME**

Newly revised and expanded, Jo Watson's Wattpad sensation Burning Moon is now available in print for the first time!

There's a very fine line between blushing bride and mascara-streaked sobbing mess. #beenthere

Lily Swanson has been planning her perfect life since she was twelve years old: Meet Mr. Right, have the big white wedding, buy a house in the 'burbs and raise 2.5 picture-perfect kids. However, when her fiancé bails, leaving Lily alone at the altar to face 500 gossipy guests, her dream turns into a nightmare. But then Lily makes an impulsive decision—she ditches the dress, grabs her passport, and heads off to Thailand to spend her honeymoon alone.

Or so she thinks...

Because Lilly quickly learns that everything in Thailand is very hot-the weather, the merchandise, and especially Damien—the sexy, spontaneous man she meets before her feet even hit the sand. Now with no plan, and nothing holding her back, Lily lets Damien lead her on a wild, unpredictable ride to the world's most exclusive party, Burning Moon. But after a week of letting go, indulging her every impulse and desire, Lily must go back to the girl she used to be. Or can Damien convince her that their party doesn't have to end?

EXCERPT:

There are moments in a person’s life that change everything. Shake things up. Steer you in a different direction and push you onto another course, toward different people, places and things. These moments don’t come around often, but when they do, they rip through the very fabric of your world.

I knew that this was one of those moments. I knew this, because I’d had one of them before when I was twelve.

Ever since that age, I’d known exactly what I wanted from life. I had planned it down to a T, to the second, to the minutest detail imaginable. The reason for this, I guess, was that I’d been shown a very good example of how not to live—thanks to my dramatic mother. She was a theatre actress of some fame and status, which was something she liked to remind everyone of…constantly. After she divorced my dad when I was five, I endured what can only be described as hell. We moved around frequently, from one play to the next, one rehearsal to the next, one man to the next. The musician, the actor, the director, her yoga teacher, her voice coach and even some magician who turned out to be a criminal. When they locked him up, he vowed to escape, as “no handcuff could hold him.” To my knowledge he’s still there.

My mother had terrible taste in men. She was drawn to bad men like a hippie was drawn to tie-dyed T-shirts and world peace. She also had some rather terrible hobbies: drunken, scantily clad parties laced with cocaine were a regular occurrence. On many occasions, while on my way to school, I’d have to navigate my way through a sea of unconscious bodies lying limp and littered across our living floor. My dad finally won the custody battle when I was twelve, and that’s when everything changed for the better.

I moved into an ordered world of perfect symmetry and seamlessly structured routine. A beautiful, neat home with a stepmom who drove me to school and cheered me on at hockey practice and two older stepbrothers who adored me. We took holidays twice a year to the same place, our beach cottage on the beautiful Natal Coast of South Africa, and ate the same meals on the same days of the week. My new life was predictable and I loved it. My “new” family took me under their wing as if I were a damaged little bird, which at the time I was.

I loved my new life so much that I vowed mine would be exactly the same. Everything would have its place and everything would fall in line with my plan.

Michael had been part of that plan:

Law school. Work at my dad’s firm. Married by twenty-five (at the latest). First child by twenty-six. Two boys and two girls. Live in a double-story house in a leafy suburb not too far away from my family. Vacations at the cottage. Roast chicken on Sundays.

But in less than twenty-four hours, my entire plan had gone up in a puff of stinking smoke. I wasn’t just “not getting married,” I was losing everything that I’d meticulously planned for since the age of twelve. And then another thought hit me. A memory that made my body ache.

“Won’t it be romantic if we conceived our baby on our honeymoon?” Michael had said one night.

I rubbed my throat. The lump that was forming made it hard to swallow.

I started to cry again. I grabbed the remote and randomly pressed buttons until I got to the nature channel…

Swirling, turquoise waters. White sands made luminescent by a low-hanging tropical sun. Massive palms, swaying seductively in the cool sea breeze and gentle waves lapping on the shore. It all looked so peaceful. So beautiful and, most importantly, so remote. 

So, so far away from the farce that had just become my life.

And then a thought hit me. It was so decisive, and it slammed into me with such force that I almost fell off the couch in shock. It was also, by far, the craziest thought I’d ever had in all my twenty-four years on this planet. A part of me couldn’t believe it was even mine. 

I was going to go on my honeymoon! Alone.

THE SERIES

Burning Moon, #1

Almost A Bride, #2

Series Page on Goodreads

BUY THE BOOK HERE:

Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Books-A-Million ~ iBooks ~ IndieBound ~ Google Play ~ Kobo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jo Watson is an award-winning writer of romantic comedies. Burning Moon won a Watty Award in 2014. Jo is an Adidas addict and a Depeche Mode devotee.

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ABOUT THE BOOK:

Title: Burning Moon

Author: Jo Watson

Series: Destination Love, #1

On Sale: August 2, 2016

Publisher: Forever

Formats: eBook

Price: $4.99 USD (eBook)

Add to Goodreads

Newly revised and expanded, Jo Watson's Wattpad sensation Burning Moon is now available in print for the first time!

There's a very fine line between blushing bride and mascara-streaked sobbing mess. #beenthere

Lily Swanson has been planning her perfect life since she was twelve years old: Meet Mr. Right, have the big white wedding, buy a house in the 'burbs and raise 2.5 picture-perfect kids. However, when her fiancé bails, leaving Lily alone at the altar to face 500 gossipy guests, her dream turns into a nightmare. But then Lily makes an impulsive decision—she ditches the dress, grabs her passport, and heads off to Thailand to spend her honeymoon alone.

Or so she thinks...

Because Lilly quickly learns that everything in Thailand is very hot-the weather, the merchandise, and especially Damien—the sexy, spontaneous man she meets before her feet even hit the sand. Now with no plan, and nothing holding her back, Lily lets Damien lead her on a wild, unpredictable ride to the world's most exclusive party, Burning Moon. But after a week of letting go, indulging her every impulse and desire, Lily must go back to the girl she used to be. Or can Damien convince her that their party doesn't have to end?

Buy The Book Here

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2aBYmU7

Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/2a9TgJq

Books-A-Million: http://bit.ly/2a5datA

iBooks: http://apple.co/2a5cWCN

Google Play: http://bit.ly/2aBYIu6

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2ahRETx

EXCERPT:

Michael Edwards—fiancé of one year, perfect boyfriend of two—had left me, Lilly Swanson, just ten minutes before I was scheduled to walk down the aisle. The bottle of perfume that he’d wanted me to wear today, insisted I wear, because “it was his favorite,” mocked me from the dressing table. So I picked it up and threw it against the wall, watching it shatter into a million pieces, just like my life. I was hit by the sickly sweet smell of jasmine and felt sick to my stomach.

What was I going to tell the five-hundred guests who were sitting in the church waiting for me? Some had even flown here to South Africa all the way from Australia.

Hi everyone. Thanks for coming. Guess what? SURPRISE! No wedding!

A wedding that my father had spent a small fortune on.

A wedding that was going to be perfect.

Perfect, dammit. Perfect!

I’d made sure of that. I had painstakingly handled every single tiny detail. It had taken months and months of meticulous planning to create this day, and now what?

Things went very blurry all of a sudden. I vaguely remember my brother James bursting into the room, screaming insults and then vowing to kill him. He even punched the best man when he claimed to have no knowledge of Michael’s whereabouts. My rational, logical father tried to find a legitimate motive for Michael’s behavior, insisting we speak to him before jumping to any rash conclusions. Hundreds of phone calls followed: where was he? Who had seen him? Where did he go?

At some stage the guests were told, and the rumor mill went into full swing…

He’d had an affair.

He’d eloped with someone else.

He was a criminal on the run.

He was gay.

He’d been beamed up by aliens and was being experimented on. (Hopefully it was painful.)

People threw around bad words like bastard, asshole and liar. They also threw around words like shame, sorry and pity. They wondered whether they should take their wedding gifts back, or leave them. What was the correct protocol in a situation like this?

While the world around me was going mad, I felt a strange calm descend. Nothing seemed real anymore, and I began to feel like a voyeur looking at my life from a distance. I didn’t care that I was sitting on the floor in my bra and panties. I didn’t care that my mascara and lipstick were so smudged I looked like Batman’s Joker. I just didn’t care.

Some minutes later my other brother Adam, the doctor, burst in and insisted I drink a Coke and swallow the little white pill he was forcing down my throat. It would calm me, he said.

Shortly after that, my overly dramatic, theater-actress mother rushed in to give the performance of her life.

“Why, why, why?” She placed her hand across her heart.

“What is this, a madness most discreet? A stench most foul?” She held her head and cried out, “Whyyy?!”

“For heaven’s sake, Ida, this isn’t some Shakespearean bloody play.” I could hear the anger in my father’s voice. Even after 18 years of divorce, they still couldn’t be civil to each other.

“Lest I remind you that all the world is a stage.” My mother shouted back, the deep timbre in her voice quivering for added dramatic tension as she tilted her head upward and clenched her jaw.

“There you go again with your crap! Clearly you still haven’t learned to separate fantasy from reality!”

“Well, I managed to do that with our marriage!”

My brother jumped between them. “Stop it. This isn’t the time!”

And then all pandemonium broke out.

The priest came around to offer some kind of spiritual guidance but exited quickly, and very red-faced, when he saw my state of undress. Some inquisitive relatives stuck their heads through the door, painted with sad, sorry puppy-dog looks, but they, too, left when they saw me spread-eagled on the floor.

An enormous ruckus ensued when the photographer burst in and started talking photos of me—no one had told him. The ruckus became a total freak show when my favorite cousin Annie, who had designed my dress for free as a wedding gift, saw the state of her “best creation” lying crumpled and torn on the floor. She looked like she was about to cry.

Then everything went very blurry and the noises around me combined into one strange drone.

I closed my eyes and everything went black.

Burning Moon Blitz – Kitty’s Book Spot

Top 5 List: What are your TOP 5 songs that go with the book?

Tricky question! I’m not sure I can say what songs go with the book, but I can tell you what I was listening to while writing it. Music plays a VERY important role in my writing.

1. Depeche Mode is my favorite band in the world, ever. I listened to “Broken” off their latest album, Delta Machine a lot. It’s dark and beautiful and perfect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urbmwI8APdo

2. Another fave band HURTS released a gem called “Blind” which I was obsessed with while writing. The lyrics are wildly romantic, in a totally obsessive, messed up kind of way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIgaWx48U8A

3. “Loud like Love” by Placebo had just come out. I think Brain Molko is one of the greatest lyricists ever. He’s a magician with words and has such a distinctive voice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi_AJxsdOKo

4. When I hit a writing slump I listen to “Never Let Me Down Again” live, and at full volume. (Depeche Mode again.) I can’t explain how amazing it is to stand in the middle of 25, 000 people and sing along to this song. (I walked down the aisle to it.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewFHD81k09k&list=RDewFHD81k09k#t=65

5. My editing song for this book was “Lucifer” by XOV. A new dark-electro-pop, Swedish artist I am currently CRAZY about. (And he’s quite hot!) Great lyrics, “even the devil’s been an angel.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7bUWuj0EYE

(WARNING HAS EXPLICIT LYRICS)

CLICK HERE if you cannot see Spotify Playlist above

THE SERIES

Burning Moon, #1

Almost A Bride, #2

Series Page on Goodreads

BUY THE BOOK HERE:

Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Books-A-Million ~ iBooks ~ Google Play ~ Kobo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jo Watson is an award-winning writer of romantic comedies. Burning Moon won a Watty Award in 2014. Jo is an Adidas addict and a Depeche Mode devotee. She lives in South Africa with her family.

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FOLLOW FOREVER ONLINE:

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Title: Heavy Love
Author: Amarie Avant
Publisher: Blu Savanti Press
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Rating: Five
Review:

"Heavy Love: A BBW BWWM Destination Romance" by Amarie Avant

My Thoughts....

Where would you find two souls that needed love in this story? For Angelique [Jelly] and Franco seemed to want to make a start at this thing called love. Will these 'two broken spirits' get what they want in the end? I loved the 'passion, empathy and friendship' that this author brings into this vacation/bachlorette party read. Hopefully we will get more on Mel and Keli's issues coming soon in "HEAVYlove: His Melody." Also thank you for the bonus read...however... I have already read it.